“Public” and Private Sectors Fight Over $100bn Fund

money_changersAccording to The Grauniad, there’s a big fight going on over who gets to control the $100 billion fund the UN is dispensing to poor countries via its “Climate Change Fund”.

Large contracts for “climate change adaptation” works in developing countries might have been awarded by the fund to international companies rather than to host governments, if attempts by some of the people influencing the decision had been successful. The people who attempted it are still in position, they have merely suffered a setback, not a defeat. In any case, the only alternative being considered is to put all the money through governments instead..

Either way it will be mostly wasted, but we’re distracted from this fact by the pantomime show of a struggle between the nasty greedy corporations and good honest NGOs and governments. The whole thing is broken, and we need to replace it with something human instead.

Apparently, according to the article, the greedy corporations lost, but the poor country governments are not happy because the board ruled to allow a “powerful private sector advisory group and an investment committee,” which, the reporting adds, “suggests that rich countries will continue to try to control the funds.”

So… if the poor countries’ governments get their way, it will be controlled by the governments of poor countries, who, as we all know, have a far better record of resisting corruption than the rich ones do! Why is there a UN fund at all? Why is $100, 000,000,000 of our money being put in the hands of a bunch of corrupt bankers instead of the people we believe our aid is for?

The money should never have been aggregated into such a vast amount. It’s insane to imagine that by massing it all together in one place like that it could ever get through to the people who actually need it, or do anything useful for them, or even be used efficiently. One hundred billion dollars will always attract the most able parasites and con-artists.

Well, anyway, here’s a link to the Guardian article.

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